Iran Gulf coast earthquake of magnitude 6.1 leaves at least five people dead.

Official news sources say that a 6.1-magnitude earthquake hit southern Iran early Saturday morning, killing at least five people and injuring 49 more. Not long after that, two more powerful earthquakes with magnitudes of up to 6.3 hit the area.

After the earthquake that happened at 2 a.m. local time and destroyed the town of Sayeh Khosh in the province of Hormozgan near Iran’s Gulf coast, there were about 24 aftershocks, two of which had magnitudes of 6.3 and 6.1. Officials told state television that the most recent quake happened around 8 a.m.

Foad Moradzadeh, the governor of Bandar Lengeh country, was quoted by the state news agency IRNA as saying, “All of the victims died in the first earthquake, and no one was hurt in the next two strong earthquakes because people were already outside their homes.” This was said in response to the fact that people had already left their homes before the next earthquakes happened.

Mojtaba Khaledi, who works for the emergency services, told state television that half of the 49 people who were hurt had been released from hospitals. Search and rescue operations have ended, according to official reports.

A member of the Kish island crisis task group named Saeid Pourzadeh said that the earthquakes haven’t affected ships or planes in the Gulf. State TV says that there have been 150 tremors and earthquakes in western Hormozgan in the past month.

Iran has a lot of major geological fault lines, and the country has been hit by a number of deadly earthquakes in recent years. In 2003, an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.6 hit the province of Kerman in Iran. The ancient city of Bam was destroyed by the quake. 31,000 people died because of the earthquake.